Bed on Fire
by Konsla
Summary: Being the sister of a protagonist is certainly not something to die for. But she did anyway. Naruto's sister Oc
1. It starts with a dream

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. **

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Last night I dreamed of Port Hacking. I had come down from Oak Park Beach and sat on the sands, watching the ocean water spit in the sinking valley, taking earth, and grass, and dirt into its great mouth with a greedy, insatiate pleasure. The water reached my curled toes as a cruise ship passed. Unknown friends wave from behind the bulwark, and children dip over the baluster, feet clutched tight to the bottom rail. Behind me, there are suburbs, a bowling alley I'll visit later, and an aquatic reserve protecting fauna that I won't ever visit. I watch the ship pass and the sky, with an even larger appetite than the ocean, soak up dark nightly colors until all the golden vestiges of summer and warmth disappear with the closing lilies in backyard gardens and rising fireflies.

I do not see this in perfect clarity; I never saw much in perfect clarity ever since I needed glasses. But my lack of ameliorated lenses was not the cause of this ambiguity- the cause was unfaithful memories.

A dream can never be undreamed, but they can be forgotten- they can be forgotten rather quickly, and these dreams I have, ignis fatuus's of the night, do not shine a light so bright to where I'd remember it, even after waking. My dreams are a private affair; not like Pushkin's where he is a king and everyone is there; Port Hacking is not the Vale of Kashmir or Zanzibar- closer is this illusion to Lermontov; he and I both go back to our homelands in the evening, and he and I both sit on sand, the cooling blood my growing awareness to this worlds falsity. Most bluntly is Mercutio, as he says "that dreamers often lie." With him comes Queen Mab, in her hazelnut carriage filled with seawater and full of salt, bitterness, and a waspish that I never asked for or wanted.

If a soul is to be born, no, if a soul is to be real, shouldn't it be born with wings? The Gannet sort that can fly in both the sky and the sea, that's what I need, to spread these wings- for the waves have made me stiff. That makes no sense. But it's the best way I can put it while lacking the peculiar clarity that is Port Hacking- my dream is better seen as a collage of scattered thoughts, because while dreaming that's exactly what it is- misshapen and missing pieces that will never completely come together, but can be layered on top of one another until all the glue drys and the image left isn't quite so different from the original. And these memories, while not authentic in the sense that, thinking of it is almost like seeing it in person, they do bring a certain nostalgia. Not the sad sort, but not the happy kind either; It brings back the best and worst moments in life, and gives little time to process any of it. I suppose that's why I sat there so long, watching the estuary turn ink black with all the mise en scène of spurious skies and fleeting waters. If I look at it long enough, maybe I can remember a bit more- a little about the woman leaning over her flower bed filled with bursting amaryllis, hydrangeas, pansies, daffodils, and buttercups; they flourish in a sun I cannot feel, sleep in an earth I cannot touch, and breath an air I cannot taste. I had never thought to be grateful for these things, basic human senses, and I cannot say I have been without them for any longer than anyone else, yet in my dreams, of the true world, of my world, these sorts of things are different, not better, but different, and a different that's more familiar to me than whatever far corner of the universe my haphazard soul has blown into.

When I feel my body waking I urge it back to sleep. I can sleep for a long time, I've always been able to sleep for a long time, both then and here, and the longer I sleep the more I dream- the more I can remember.

It's a strange feeling to remember something amid nothingness, and while most of what I remember doesn't last, I can still tell that I had remembered something and soon forgotten it. I would almost call it short-term memory, but the things I'm thinking of must have happened a long time ago, otherwise, there wouldn't be so much to think of.

I am interrupted by a small, heavy, and not entirely conscious child. I call him a child because he feels like a child. Skin too soft to be an adult, and sounds too warped, like vegetables shoved down the garbage disposal, unnecessarily loud, and increasingly unintelligible.

I can't actually see him. The most I see is bits of color. From our distance now, to where we are so close I can feel his cheek touching mine, I can see his hair, and I know that it is butter-yellow; sticking up in every direction as if constantly being administered a steady stream of static and his eyes, bright and blue are as surreal as his hair, popping out of his sockets all big, wet, and teary. There's something about him, even these bits and pieces that I see, that tickles the back of my brain. If I'm not sleeping, I'm trying to think of what it means, that almost fond whisper, urging me to spontaneously comprehend all the wonders of the world. It's completely and utterly ridiculous, and yet, I can't help but feel as if a story's begging to be told. A story about as ridiculous as the boy in front of me.

It's not very likely that it means anything at all. It's more likely that this is all another dream, a dream within a dream, where the more I see makes everything less gone, and the more I feel the less I grasp. The only reason I'm not convinced of this yet is unequivocally due to the colors. Colors like that don't appear in dreams, and they never stay the same color for long.

It's all about the colors.

And as I stare out at the yellow and blue, a red appears among them, completing the triad with all the naturalness a color can have.

That makes no sense.

Clarity; I've mentioned that once before.

Clarity would be nice.

* * *

I don't learn my name until a couple of years later, at the same time I learn I have a brother, the boy with the butter hair.

His name is Uzumaki Naruto, and I'm Uzumaki Takaoko.

Currently, we're sharing a shoebox-sized room, in a shoebox-sized building lodged between two other shoebox-sized buildings who both happen to be seafood restaurants- making our room constantly smell like fish. It's not a bad smell, most of the fish is cooked, and cooked fish smells good, along with tempura, and grilled eel.

I learn about all this around the same time. Details like exact dates and times escape me. I know that my birthday is October 10th, it's the same as my brother, we're twins, but I do not know what time we were born. Was it in the morning? Evening? Night? Why is knowing the day more important than knowing the time? I wish I knew what time we were born because then every day a moment would pass when I could slow down and realize that that had been the moment I was born, the exact moment.

It doesn't matter knowing the date for my birthday, because no one celebrates on October 10th- October 10th is a cursed day, a day where hundreds of people died all at once. Babies choked on their own chakra, apartments fell to their hands and knees, the Hokage died, a man revered as strongly as God met his match to a ten-tailed fox. It'd be wrong to celebrate a day like that- even if I don't remember any of it happening other people do remember it; most people still remember it.

Uehara Chigusa remembers it better than most, and that's why she always tells Naruto and me that it was our fault. I don't think it was our fault, that's impossible, babies can't kill people, but our parents are another consideration. Babies can't kill people but their parents can. Whoever our parents were, must have been awful to warrant us such hate from the village.

I tend not to think of them much, and I'm much happier to be an orphan than to have bad parents.

Uehara agrees. Not with that my parents were bad people, I've never mentioned that since she must already know, but that it's much better Naruto and I are orphans unable to torment the rest of the village while being confined to the shoe-box sized building that is, 'Konoha's Home for Boys and Girls'.

"And you remember," Uehara instructs with a sharply pointed finger. "You two stay in your room while the families are here. No one will adopt you anyways." She doesn't say this in a mean voice, no, it's matter-of-fact; no one will adopt us, and no amount of seeing us moping around us will change that for people.

Precariously my brother puts his hand in mine as we go upstairs. We have our own room. Most kids don't, but we have our own room because Uehara would think it cruel to force another child to sleep so close to us. I don't mind, most of the other rooms are filled with 4-7 kids, and while our room is a lot smaller than the other rooms it's only our room, no one else's, and no one else uses it. It's nice to have something for yourself.

When I open the door the smell of flour and fried fish greets me the same way it said goodbye as I left in the morning, with soft wafts filling the air as warm as on oven and as bright as my hair. Quickly my fingers work to open the window at the end of our room. It's small but fills the room with light and fresh air that's hard to come by in a house so full.

Naruto has gone and sat on his bed, fiddling with the blankets and the thin mattress until his fingers clasp against a small toad wallet he was given by someone he was too young to remember. I don't remember him either, but I know it was a man, he was too wrinkly to be a woman.

With the window open the room is louder, filled with the chatter of the restaurants beside us, and the dog that lives in the house behind us, but I can still hear the clink of coins as Naruto counts out his money.

"What are you doing?" I ask, a mild curiosity while I watch the dog in the back chase its tail in circles. Naruto doesn't answer right away, but he stops counting his money and instead works his nail along the surface of it. Trying to scrape off the metalwork patterns in the design of a Daoist symbol.

"Why doesn't anybody want us?" He asks instead of answering head still downturned as he fiddles with the money, flipping it over in his fingers and looking closer at the patterns as if they hold the key to duplicating the coin.

"It's not just us," I say, as gently as I can. "A lot of kids never get adopted."

"But I want to get adopted," he sniffles. "And they're not even giving us a chance!"

I can't keep the frown from taking over my lips, and move my head closer to the window so he doesn't see it. It may sound silly, but I feel like I don't need a parent like I am already an adult, if not extremely close. I feel, as I once dreamed of oceans and beaches and a life filled not quite full, but full enough for a person to be satisfied, filled enough to feel like your full even though you could take in quite a bit more.

Yes, that about sums it up, but it still doesn't make sense, it's still not clear.

"Why do you want to get adopted?" I ask because really, I can't understand, not when I feel as old as the people adopting me, not when I feel full for that part of my life, childhood, that is.

"I want a mom," Naruto starts slowly. "And a dad," he joins me by the window, "and that dog that runs around in circles," he's taking off now. "And dinner together every night, and chores with pay, and parents to walk to school with and to take me to the doctor and to celebrate things with, and… and everything else I don't have!" By the end he's shouting, hands balled tightly in two white fists, and face clenched up wrinkles forming around his nose.

"What about me?" I tilted my head to face him, just a few centimeters above his height. "Don't you want me there too?"

"Of course!" He shouts again and I'm surprised Uehara hasn't run up to yell at us. "I want you to have these things too."

"I already have these things," I say pointing out the window. "There's the dog" my finger moves to the restaurant beside us. "There's where we go to celebrate," my thumb touches my chest. "Here's who takes you to the doctor, and walks you to school, and eats dinner with you every night, and finds yen on the floor so you can fill up your toad." I rest my hand on the top of his head. It takes effort to reach that high. "I suppose the only thing we're missing is a mom and a dad, but we're doing pretty well without them aren't we?"

Naruto nods shyly.

"Then do we really need them at all?"

It takes him a while to answer, and for a while I think he won't answer at all, but slowly, he peels his hands from his chest and wraps them around my shoulders, crying, and weeping and sobbing and sounding a lot like the garbage disposal I mentioned before, but in all the noisy incessant sounds I hear a clear bell-like 'no', and that has got to be the closest thing to clarity I've found so far.

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**A/n: Kind of wrote this randomly, but please let me know what you think :)**


	2. The ants go marching

**Disclaimer- I do not own Naruto**

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At night I watch the beetles line up along the window. All in a row, like a bunch of ducks or green toy soldiers. They come from the neighbor's garden. The same neighbor with the tail-chasing dog who's still running circles only now inside the house. Their garden is filled with sunflowers and roses, not the nice kind from Yamanaka's flower shop that are able to last even in winter, but the real kind without strong chakra who rot and turn brown in the chilling fall. It's the roses the beetles like, but they come to our window for the water that gathers on the glass.

Naruto sometimes slaps them away with his shoes. I'd tell him it's wrong, but I don't think I have the right too, not when he and I both want to be ninja. We hadn't always wanted to be ninja; last week, I barely knew what a ninja was, just that they were out there protecting us, but that all changed when a man visited last week and sat Naruto and me down for a long talk about how it'd be best if people like us were to put our 'special' skills for the use of the village. I don't know what he means by special; perhaps it was a hit at our lineage; our parents were bad and now we had to pay for their mistakes by working for the government or something.

Naruto agreed easily. I think it had something to do with the man who visited us, he wasn't an ordinary ninja, after all, he was the Hokage. And despite being very old, and not dangerous-looking in the least, everyone, even Uehara bowed low and showed a great amount of respect. The Hokage was venerable, and by association, ninja are also celebrated; it was seeing this, more than any sort of talking to, that made Naruto decide to be a ninja; I simply agreed because I didn't know what else to do.

"You think he'll come here again?" Naruto asked me after the Hokage had left.

"Yes," I replied easily. The Hokage had shown a great interest in the orphans and seemed to care a lot that we were to become ninja. It would make sense for him to come again if only to see that we still held that interest.

"When he comes again, I'm going to tell him that I'm going to be the next Hokage," Naruto said, shyly at first, and then all at once as he gathered some courage.

"Why would you want to be Hokage?" I asked curiously. I certainly wouldn't want to visit every orphanage in the village to pressure kids into becoming a ninja. That would be a lot of work.

"I want to be Hokage because…" He trailed off; his face scrunching up as if he was thinking it over real hard, and I suppose he was, if anyone else heard him saying he wanted to become Hokage, the last thing they would ask is why, if they even asked anything at all. "Well, who doesn't want to become Hokage?"

"I don't," I muttered rolling on my stomach and watching the beetles march. They continued with the glass, sucking up fat drops of water running down. It reminded me of rain going along a car, but I couldn't remember ever seeing a car before.

"Why don't you," he peeks up from beneath his covers so that I can only see his eyes. Blue, blue eyes, I don't have blue eyes, my eyes I violet, my hair is deep red, sometimes I wonder If we're really related at all.

"Do you want to be Hokage because you want to be remembered?" I ask instead. My answer for not wanting to be Hokage is as straightforward as his, it is simply because I do not want to, but to want to do something you have to have some reason for that even if his reasoning now is still as juvenile as he is old.

"Remembered? What do you mean?" He asks, so I try another question. "Then, do you want to be Hokage because you want to be strong?"

"No, I want to be Hokage so everyone knows me, and likes me." He proclaimed hungrily, coming up to the side of my bed with small grabby hands. "Everyone," he says again as if he's just had an epiphany at the very word. It reminds me of something out of a book; it also reminds me of something a little childish, but nonetheless ambitious.

"Don't you think the world might be lonely from a star's point of view?" I muse quietly. By now Naruto has curled up beside be pulling our blankets over us both. For a moment the blanket goes over my head and it's dark. He's close enough to hear even my quietest whispers at this distance, and answers me quickly:

"But there are so many stars in the sky."

The blankets have fallen off both of our heads, and the light from the window shines, only blocked from the small line of beetles.

"I suppose you're right," my gaze travels away from the beetles to the stretched canvas behind them. Violet and blue, both our eyes reflect out in that great black expanse, and a million lights are with them. "There are a lot of stars."

* * *

Becoming a ninja starts with visiting the hospital. On Monday, we're taken there with a group of five to get vaccinated against tetanus, whooping cough, Polio, Measles, Chickenpox, Influenza—the whole nine yards. My brother will come with the next group, while my group is getting treated at '_Samuisamui'_ the cheapest frozen delight shop in all of Konoha, and situated rather close to the orphanage and neighborhood of chintzy outlets.

But for now, all five of us wait for Uehara to fill out each of our patient forms. All children in Konoha have free insurance up to 12 years old, and all ninjas have a basic insurance from there on out. Chunin and Jounin, of course, have better insurance than the basic insurance that covers all Genin and academy students, but Chunin and Jounin also go on more dangerous missions and get hurt more often.

The Ninja health care is run by the government along with the children's health care; however, civilian health care is privately managed by several companies throughout Konoha and a few even branch out to other villages in Fire country who don't have access to medical institutions.

At least that's what I read off of the Joho pamphlets stuck inside cooking and gardening booklets on short magazine racks. I'd ask Uehara about it, but she's nearly finished with our forums now and will be taking Masato and Kanjiro to Doctor Yasue soon.

When they leave I am left with Mikami Ruriko and Mikami Ryu. Like Naruto and I, they are both siblings who were fortunate enough to stay together. Although they are not twins, Ryu, who is one year older couldn't go to the academy last year due to his damaged chakra coils.

The shots don't take long, and Ruriko and Ryu are called back less than 10 minutes later, leaving me alone in the waiting room. I do not remain companionless for long, as a boy I have not seen before comes out of one of the examination rooms, tears in his eyes, he sits across from me while his mother goes to the reception desk. She's asking about ophthalmologist's, I recognize the word but can't remember what it is. So instead I turn back to the boy, someone easier to understand.

"Does it hurt?" I asked curiously; I had never had a shot before, and if I had I couldn't remember anything for what it felt like.

"No!" He nearly shouts, reminding me of Naruto.

"If it doesn't hurt then why are you crying?" My legs swing back and forth under the seat, and I lean closer to see if he really is crying. "Was the doctor mean to you?"

"No," he says again.

"Is 'no' all you know how to say?" I hide the smile twitching on my lips.

"N-" he stops himself before he says it and glares. We have a staring match for a good minute until the grin finally breaks over my face, thin but sweet. He lets his glare up in surprise but immediately returns with a darker glower.

"Sasuke, who are you talking to?" The woman from the desk, his mother, is looking at me. I give her a better smile than the one I gave her sun.

"Hello," I say sweetly, in the same voice I use for all adult strangers. It becomes a little more real when I see her face. Pale and smooth, unlike my tanned skin that already has scars along my knuckles and palms. And her hair is black, a pretty shiny black that's straight with no tangles or imperfections, they match her dark eyes nicely, and reminds me of the sky I saw last night.

"Well," she says a little breathlessly. "You look just like a woman I used to know."

"I'm not a woman," I say glancing towards the examination door. Shouldn't it be time for my shots now?

"Hahaha, of course not," she agrees. "I meant it as a compliment, she was a very beautiful woman."

"Thank you," I say dipping my head. My fingers twitch on the side of my skirt, the stiff cotton feeling dry against my clammy hands. She must have noticed my nervousness because next, she says, "Sorry, I should have introduced myself. My name is Uchiha Mikoto."

"Uzumaki Takaoko," I opened my mouth to say those words, but it wasn't me who voiced them, it was Doctor Yasue. He's standing with the examination door, a clipboard in his hands, and a sleepy look on his face.

"That's me," I stood quickly giving Mikoto a quick bow. "It was nice to meet you Uchiha-san." I give her son a nod, he ignores it, then join Doctor Yasue in the examination room.

It doesn't take me long to learn that shots do hurt.

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**A/N: Short chapter and unedited sorry for mistakes!**


	3. Monkey see monkey do

**Disclaimer- I do not own Naruto.**

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The pranks start with a thermostat. It's off again, and it's cold.

Each room has a thermostat, they'd always had thermostats as the orphanage was once used as a karaoke house, and the rooms we now slept in used to be private rooms for small parties.

On some nights it returned to a karaoke room as Naruto sang the Acorn Song and I nodded along my foot bouncing up and down to the tune across my knee. It went something like this:

"_An acorn rolled down and down,_

_He suddenly fell into a pond._

_Then came the loaches,_

_Hi boy! Come play with us!_

_The acorn enjoyed playing with them._

_But he soon began to cry,_

_I want to go back to the mountain._

_The loaches didn't know what to do."_

Nearly all children our age knew it, along with the _counting song_, _fireflies come_, and _Hakone mountains. _You heard it while they ran up and down the streets playing ball and chasing cans with sticks.

I knew one song,

"_Pick a red flower to give to her_

_In her hair, I'll place the flower_

_Red flower, red flower, in her hair_

_It will bloom and sway like the sun._

_Pick a white flower to give to her_

_On her chest, I'll place the flower_

_White flower, white flower, on her chest_

_It will bloom and sway like the moon."_

Red flower, White flower; I knew that song, I didn't know how, but I did, and no one else at the orphanage seemed to know it; so I sang it only to Naruto, and only when it was very late at night.

I was singing it tonight, as we held each other under the blankets, too cold to sleep apart. Spring was coming slowly, and the winter chill still sat deep in our bones, reclaiming its rule over our small bodies with the hasty rime of frost covering the outside of our window. And while there was no snow, as it rarely snowed so late into winter in the Land of Fire, the bite that met us that night felt remarkably similar to snow as it melted into tears on top of our cheeks.

The next morning I went up to Uehara and told her about this right away; "Our room was too cold last night."

She gave me one look through the corner of her eye and promptly said. "I know."

It may sound daft, but I was shocked as she said this, having not realized that the thermostat was not broken but tampered with, deliberately.

"Please don't make it cold tonight," I told her.

She was chewing on betel nut making her spit and tongue as red as if she had a mouth full of blood. It made her look older than she was, not that she was a young woman. Truthfully I didn't know her age, and I never would but most days she appeared in her late forties and only looked older when she chewed.

"I'll turn the thermostat back on when you decide to do your chores." she didn't look at me this time, only continued flipping through the files in front of her. I saw pictures of children on them, but she went through them too fast for me to recognize any of them.

Chores? Ah, she was talking about the dishwashing incident.

It wasn't as much of an incident as Uehara doubtlessly made it up to be. A punishment I would think appropriate is a smack on the wrist or more forceful, a wack to my rear end with a branch from the young Hashirama tree sprouting out front. Turning the heater off to our room, and punishing Naruto too seeming completely ridiculous bordering brainless.

Unfortunately the word of an adult, no matter how senseless, would always hold more power than anything I wanted to say.

I saw the incident, as not an incident, but merely a brief moment of civil disobedience. I suppose I better explain what happened. Well then, let's start at the beginning, shall we? It all started in the kitchen.

The kitchen, at the orphanage, is coincidentally the dirtiest room in the whole building. The floor is nearly black, and even when cleaned with mops and brooms that blackness won't come off, only fade into a slightly lighter color that will turn back to black by the end of the day. We all wear slippers in the kitchen, and leave them in a tall, wooden, trestle-like structure, made up of cross-hatching timber and forming holes for us to stick our sandals in. It's an unwritten rule among us children to keep the orphanage as clean as we can, it's not nice living someplace dirty, so when putting our slip shoes away we stand outside of the kitchen and lean in through the doorless entryway to put them up. Some of the younger kids have a harder time doing this and the older ones will help them out. That generosity has never been extended to Naruto and me, but we still appreciate the children's' coalition despite the blatant partisanship against us.

Another unwritten rule is to do your share in chores. Every week we're assigned work to do by Uehara. Housework mostly, cleaning the floors, setting the table, waking everyone up in the morning, polishing the furniture, picking the mail up from 'Konoha Post', grocery shopping, cooking, fixing the shoji doors with new washi paper or sewing up clothes, and last of all washing the dishes. This week I got assigned to washing the dishes, one of the most enduring chores considering it has to be done every day. Four children are assigned to this particular chore; however, Machi Isei had come down with a cough the day before and would be in bed for the whole day, leaving us with three people to do the job of four. The fair and logical deduction would be to split the work evenly between us, but Hanshiro and Hanako decided it would be much better for me to do all the extra work instead. Uehara allowed it. Waving her hand in acceptance when Hanshiro and Hanako asked. I was there too and would have said something if Uehara hadn't immediately after, shut the door on us and said very close to a yell "just do it." And so we did, for the most part 'just do it', and when Hanshiro and Hanako left me with more work to do, I left too, leaving a heap of dirty dishes in the sink.

Unspoken rule number one of 'keeping the orphanage as clean as we can', was broken as I did it, but I didn't particularly care. Thinking of it now, perhaps I should have been more mature, and done it nonetheless, but Uehara should have been more mature as well and told Hanshiro and Hanako that they had to help me even if they didn't want to. Isn't it strange what children pick up from other people? To think I have begun adopting Uehara's immaturity so soon; I wonder if in a few years I'll be chewing on betel nut, mouth as red as my hair.

Still, there are some traits that I have been born with, some traits I can't remember ever picking up, and one of theses traits is an uncanny ability to think I am always right while constantly being confused about what I'm right about, or even what right is. It's quite the conundrum, and if I could remember more, I'd think I'd tell myself not to think too much of it or anything, for that matter. But the sensible part of me has been hindered by Uehara's senselessness, and may not even be there anymore at all. So I didn't wash the extra dishes, and I didn't back down to Uehara when she told me to go back to the kitchen and finish my chores from last night.

Instead, I told her: "I did my share. I won't do anymore."

And she told me: "Then you can sleep in the cold."

Anger. Apoplectic, unadulterated fury slowly cooling to a bitter resentment like red metal turning back to tempered steel, filled me at those words, and I felt something ugly flutter in my stomach, making my head spin with so much raw emotion that I thought I might faint.

I did not faint. I left the room and went to find Naruto who was building a tower out of playing blocks.

"You still got that kunai?" I asked him. Several months ago he found one, a real one on the ground and brought back home. We've kept it hidden in between my bedpost and the wall ever since. Although sometimes Naruto would take it out thinking it was the coolest thing he had ever found. It probably was considering the contenders were old gum wrappers with witty jokes and a rusty neckless he found buried the neighbor's garden.

"Yeah," he said eyes sparkling from the mischief he must have seen in mine.

"Grab it," I told him. "And meet me in Kitahachi's room." Kitahachi was a young man who helped out enough at the orphanage to have his own, small, office in the back. But he wasn't here today so it was empty now.

Naruto got up quickly to do what I told him. While I went to Kitahachi's room and rushed to the corner lamp.

Now, I don't know how I had come up with this idea, like many ideas that would later follow throughout my life it just came into my head, there was no fanfare or ringing bells, it was not an epiphany or a strike a brilliance, the best way I could describe it would be suddenly remembering something you've forgotten, but I digress, how it came to me doesn't matter, what had happened does.

And what had happened was this; Naruto came, about as quickly as I had and gave me the kunai without a question. Kunai in hand I unplugged the lamp in the corner and cut off the rubber coating. Then I pulled off the wire around the kunai's handle and wrapped it around the exposed lamp wries.

Without hesitation, I took this wire concoction and put it in the electrical circuit. It blew out every light in the building, along with every light on the block. We'd caused a bona fide blackout, and smiled in the dark.

Well, I smiled, Naruto still wasn't sure what had happened. I told him later that night after I'd dumped the lamp and the wires in the seafood restaurant's dumpster, and after the power company had come out and examined the electrical transformer a few buildings down.

We'd gotten caught, and shared the blame between the two of us. But, Uehara didn't turn the thermostat off again, and Naruto was quite happy with all the attention it got and asked to do it again.

I told him, "let's try something else, something that doesn't turn the power out for a few hours."

"Alright," he agreed. "What other pranks can we do?"

Pranks? I hadn't thought of it as a prank, I had thought of it as payback.

"Pranks huh?" I drew my arms across my chest. "I bet we can come up with a bunch more of those."

We did come up with more, and we did get caught most of the time, but sometimes we didn't, sometimes people weren't sure what had happened at all.

The pranks started with a thermostat, and they never really ended after that.

* * *

**A/N- I really liked this chapter. I was going to make it longer, but then it would have been on a different part of their life, so I decided to cut it short here. ****Do you guys prefer short chapters and quicker updates, or longer chapters and slower updates? Thank you for reading :)**

**Edit: ****Explanation for how the power went out- putting mental in an electrical circuit will cause a short circuit because you are blocking a path between to terminals; that will cause you to blow a fuse or trip the circuit breaker, meaning power and lights on the same circuit will go out until you replace the fuse or reset the breaker. Of course, this will electrocute you, but Takaoko was holding the still rubber part of the lamp wiring. As far as Naruto technology goes, I assume they have electrical circuits because I have seen tv's in a few of the episodes. Furthermore, I had the whole block go out of power since their technology is still developing. Also if you look up pictures of Konohagakure online you can see some images with power lines and transmitters. Hope this clears things up :) **


	4. Cat got your tongue?

...

It is spring again. I can't remember the last one as well as I'll remember this one, but all springs start with rain; the warm kind that pretty girls sleep under, and prettier flowers bud poking out of the earth with the worms and little bugs that eat up all the sweetness before it can fade away. Springtime is the time for beginnings, and before a single flower becomes large enough to cut, school starts, filling Naruto's head with air and water, and never enough to completely burst, but enough to leak, and be constantly replaced with new ideas of friendship and comradery. I begin to think of new things too, but never enough to truly understand what I'm really curious about.

We start school on a warm April morning. The sun flitting through the cherry and maple trees surrounding the academy and decorating our skin with wispy golden spots. It wasn't a scorching sun and when it kissed our skin, we didn't feel anything other than bemusement as we watched the spots flicker and move while we swayed back and forth of the balls of our feet; Naruto's hand in mine and mine in his. There was excitement on his skin, I could feel it and he could feel my impatience. Both buzzing until we felt tight under our matching clothes. Matching because I liked looking like my brother and I wanted people to know we were related, even if we looked nothing alike. Today his eyes were blue as ever, bluer by the cloudless sky. It made my own purple eyes seem dull and dark, enhanced further by the black whiskers under them, which came up higher on my face then they did on Naruto's. Under his whiskers were red cheeks with an inexperienced shyness that had overtaken him as soon as the commencement ceremony began. I watched his blue eyes as they darted to the back along the line of parents surrounding the children in a semi-circle of protection. They all stared at the Hokage or their own children in endearment. I listened through one ear to what the Hokage was talking about, but it all came out the other ear in an uncontrollable way that left me wondering why we had to listen to him before starting school in the first place.

My hearing returned when I found my own name, "Uzumaki Takaoko", being called by a teacher on the same stage where the Hokage had been on before. I looked at the children standing on the stage beneath him and dragged Naruto and me until we reached the small crowd.

"No," the young man who called my name told me. "Naruto has already been called into Kanda-san's class." He gesticulated with his left hand to another group across the stage and nearer to the stairs.

I watched his hand move the way you would watch waves move sand on the shore and then slip back into the sea as if they had never come at all. He must have seen this on my face because then he told me to let go of my brother's hand. I did this reluctantly, and Naruto looked as confused as I felt. Then the woman he had pointed out as Kanda came over, her cheeks full of air and a deep shade of red as she moved across the stage in front of the still-present crowd to collect my brother, she did this harshly. Then I realized everyone was watching us as they had once watched the Hokage, but instead of admiration, their eyes were full of hate, and the children caught on to this animosity without having to be told.

Naruto disappeared in his group and me with mine, until we were all herded into the building and then into different classrooms. I lost sight of him when the crowd swept up his golden head, pinks, blacks, yellows and every shade of brown consumed him. There was no red, only I was red, and not the gentle kind of shy blushes or pretty roses, but the loud kind that butted in screaming 'look at me! Look at me!' every chance it got. And people did look. They watched as I sat near a window, so I too could have things to look at more interesting than myself, and they continued to look until our teacher made a noise in the front of the room.

The teacher, who I'd taken an instant disliking to, wrote his name across the blackboard with colored chalk. It read: Michizoe Shigeki. I repeated the name in my head to remember it as he passed out books to the class that had a tanuki on the cover holding up a kanji character I couldn't recognize.

When he stopped passing out books and came to the front of the class, he stared at us; I took the time to work out his face. He had tight eyes that didn't look as if they fit right in his sockets, but they looked smart the way owls or parrots do. His intelligence made him curt, and he began to talk about very important things, too fast for many of the students to properly understand, he said it like this: "About half of you will get to the last year here; that was in your enrollment forms, although you won't be dropped out until the fourth year- when the basic education ends," he sat down at his desk and put his hands on the wood. "If you get dropped out, you'll be reimbursed with two free years at civilian secondary school."

I knew this. We were told this when the Hokage visited the orphanage, and it was easier to listen then. During his visit, we learned that civilian school was only free for orphans, and only free up to primary school. After that most orphans went off to learn a trade. Some would go back after they made enough money to pay for higher education, but often that ended in piles of debt, so most didn't. Orphans were never taught to properly manage money and usually used it to make up for their shortcomings like paying for their taxes to be done for them since they were never taught how to do that either or paying for a lawyer to make sure they weren't being cheated in their rental agreements. That's why nearly all orphans went to the academy, even if they didn't particularly want to.

"Many parents become surprised when their children don't turn out to be the half that makes it," he continued. "Luckily there are other classes, and they are in the same percentile, meaning over half of you may make it to graduation." He didn't mention that it could also be less than half of us. "Let's work hard this year to be successful in the next," he finished with a genuine smile making his eyes look kinder and less severe, then instructed us to open our books to the first page.

I looked at the sky out the window, it was turning grey.

…

We are let out for an hour, in the middle of the school day, a luxury only given to the youngest grades in the academy, and we take our lunches and bamboo sticks for playing games out to the balding fields and twiney peach trees, running between them while passing balls and trading jabs. Naruto asks me to approach a group with him. I was about to refuse, but unknown sentiments overcame me, some quiet voice in my head told me that this was important, that firsts to children are the firsts, firsts they will ever have, and the only firsts they will ever get. And then I took my brother's hand and had him lead me to a civilian group of children with colorful clothes and large Bentos.

"Hi," Naruto began, extremely shy and incredibly small. I made myself look larger beside him, straightening my shoulders and standing from my heels. They regarded us warily, as if unsure how to respond. But then they remembered what had happened at the commencement, and a silent agreement was shared between them in an unskillful manner where each child looked at the other to confirm they were all thinking the same thing. Then one particularly bold girl began to laugh, I didn't recognize her from my class, but Naruto ducked his head and his blue eyes wavered.

"Naruto-kun," the laughing girl spoke to him with familiarity, as if they were good friends. "You were sooo~ funny in class today. Talking about the Hokage stuff like you act-tually meant it." The rest of them laughed as if she had said something very funny, and she preened under the attention her lips coming out in a layered smile. This made Naruto wilted further.

"Can you say it again?" She asked, raising higher the further Naruto sank. "Louder this time so everyone can hear."

She gestured around the play yard, and some children stopped as she did this, watching, waiting, anticipating that something was about to happen, but unsure what it meant.

There was a pause before anyone spoke and I tried to figure out whether the laughing girl was trying to be friendly or if she was just incredibly stupid.

Then Naruto began to speak in a terrible sort of way where his breathing was choppy, and his words scrambled up. "I-I-I…wannn-..." It sounded like he was about to cry. Luckily, he did not have to speak long because the laughter of the group before us drowned out the rest of his words.

"Cat got your tongue?" The girl said proudly, flipping her short purple hair over her shoulder. It reminded me of something from a movie. "I thought you actually wanted to be Hokage? If you can't say it, you can't do it."

She was taunting him, I realized. And then Naruto began to cry.

It was not the first time I had seen my brother cry. He cried al lot, but it was the first time I had seen him cry in public, and there is something demoralizing about crying in public. Watching someone cry is as awful as watching someone bleed. You see the "cut" and the "knife", and you watch it sink deeper and deeper saying 'stop bleeding' and asking, 'why must you bleed in the first place'. The cut says, 'to feel', but you don't have to bleed to feel, you don't have to cry to feel, and you don't have to cry at all, but my brother did, he couldn't help himself.

I couldn't help myself either.

I kneed the laughing girl in the crotch.

She screamed at me, so I punched her in the mouth.

She was quiet then, and I asked her:

.

.

.

"Cat got your tongue?"

I was sent to the office.

…

I did not go to class for the rest of the day, they had taken me out, and sat me down in a room by myself. Even when the school day ended, I was held after it and made to stack supplies at the bottom of closets. Naruto waited for me, and we met outside the school, he sat against the stairs with his and my bag at his feet, and his head between his knees.

When I called him from the door he stood up and hauled our bags up to his shoulders. His eyes were still wet, they made the blue look bluer. I wondered if my own purple was duller from tiredness. I didn't want to go to school tomorrow, and from the looks of it neither did he.

Naruto dropped our bags and launched at me, hugging with his whole body, then with mine, and for a moment we felt as if we had become the same person, with the same mind, the same thoughts, and the same memories. Maybe that moment would have lasted longer, lasted for our whole lives even if I hadn't had so many unimportant things remembered in my head. That was a first the both of us needed, the first time either of us had been fully known and truly loved, but firsts are bittersweet because we'll never get to experience them like that again. I had stopped hugging him then, and bent my head until it fit against his, and whispered as quiet as the crickets in the grass beside us: "Do you believe it is true?"

I don't think either one of us knew what I was talking about. I say things without meaning to say them, things that make no sense but feel right at the time. It felt like I needed to say something because this was an important moment, a moment that meant more than silence. Maybe I was asking if he believes in himself if he believes he could become Hokage, or maybe I was asking if he thought the laughing girl was right, that his dreams were impossible.

'_Believe it?'_

Either way, it didn't matter, because he didn't answer me, maybe he hadn't even heard. We went out to eat in celebration of the first day of school and went back to the orphanage feeling a lot better than we had before.

_'Believe it.' _

...

**A/N: This took ridiculously long, and I apologize for that. I had it written out for a long time, but I didn't like it and just last week I scrapped it entirely and began writing it all again. I'm still not sure if I'm really fine with it, but I didn't want to put it off any longer. **

**The next chapter will be up much sooner! I'm much happier with it and already have most of it written. Also, plot actually begins to move next chapter, so look forward to that.**

** Thanks for reading! I hope there weren't too many mistakes lol**


	5. Boom chica boom

**...**

For the rest of the first week, I had no detention, but Naruto did. It was strange because he was given these punishments for seemingly no reason, not like me, I had assaulted a student, Naruto had done nothing. These five days we have gotten home late and Uehara would send us to bed empty bellied, but the more times Naruto got detention the longer he was made to stay. Today I waited for him it the courtyard testing how far my legs can bend sideways. I only left when I knew he'd be out soon, and traveled to Ichiraku's to pick up dinner for us in celebration of completing the first week of school, just as we had gone there for finishing the first day of school several days ago.

Ichiraku's is on a busy street, with all kinds of food surrounding it. Just by walking down the road your stomach can be tricked by the nose into thinking it had had a feast! Naruto and I do this often, pretending we have eaten everything we have ever wished to eat, and as much as we ever could ever eat. There is no greater feeling than being full, but stomachs filled with air shrink back quickly, and leave the feeling of missing things. I close my eyes to better smell all there is to smell and imagine that I am tasting what I smell, and what I taste is salt. That is how we first find Ichiraku's, and that is how we have always found it since.

"One extra-large miso with pork cutlets, and one regular shoyu no pork," I tell Teuchi. "To go."

"You should eat ramen when it has just been prepared so the noodles are firm, and the broth is hot," he says while writing the order.

"I can't today. Naruto and I have to be home earlier tonight," I explain. "But next time I'll bring Naruto, and we'll stay to eat."

Mollified he smiles, and his hands, large and calloused from constant work, dip into the pot of broth to taste if it is right. Someone once told me you can see a chef's experience by just looking at his hands. If they have been cooking for long the tips of the fingers are flattened by the touch of hot dishes and pans, the forefinger is crooked from where it holds the peeler, and the skin has grown thick from healing cuts. I can tell by looking at Teuchi's hands that he has been cooking for a long time while his daughter Ayame's hands are still pink and tender.

There is another customer at Ichiraku's this evening. I sit beside him as I wait. He looks like a slovenly person, but I don't like to judge on appearances so I try to ignore this.

"Hello," I said after he takes a break from eating. "My name is Uzumaki Takaoko."

He doesn't look at me, but still tells me his name, "Seno Ninsei," before taking another mouthful of ramen.

I watch him eat since there is nothing else to do. He eats sloppily, not as much as Naruto who ends up with half of the broth on his cheeks, but still sloppy to where he has to wipe up droplets on the table with many paper napkins.

"It's rude to stare at people," He tells me after a minute, wiping his mouth off with already damp napkins, I watch this too because I am curious about how other people do things.

"Sorry," I say but don't look away since he didn't ask me to.

Teuchi is in the kitchen, leaned over a hot both that breaths fire and exhales steam. I can feel the steam on my face as I sit there closely. It adds to the heat of the waning spring making me sleepy, and I think of how nice this steam will feel when I am sitting here in the winter.

"Is there something you want?" Seno asks after another minute.

I don't want anything but my ramen at the moment, but I think of a question since he asked me one: "Are you a ninja?"

"No."

"Then what do you do?"

"It's rude to ask someone what they do," he tells me.

"Sorry," I say again. He starts eating again, and the steam still blows in my face making me lay my head down on the table. I listen to the sounds of cutting vegetables and try to recognize them by the sounds they make as they are cut. Scallions hardly make any sound, when they are cut I can only hear the board and the knife. Tofu is easy because tofu is cut on the palms. Enokitake mushrooms are easy too because they are only cut once at the base.

"I work for the Konoha sewage department," Seno says, just as I began to think he wasn't going to talk to me again.

"Oh," I say. "Is that a nice job?"

"Is that a joke?" He asks defensively.

"No," I raise my head up and rest my chin on one hand. "I don't know what the sewage department does."

"We clean up shit," he says uncensored.

"What kind of shit?"

"Anything that goes down the drain," he pauses, then adds: "Or down the toilet."

"I once put a golf ball down the toilet," I admit. Naruto and I wanted to see what would happen, surprisingly it went down, and we never saw it again.

"I think I remeber cleaning that up."

"Really?!"

"No," he sounds as if he'd almost laughed. "We don't clean like that, we use seals to take things out of the water."

"Like dolphins?"

"No," he does laugh this time. "Seals," he says again using his hands for emphasis. "Like pictures."

"What sort of pictures?" I ask, thinking of a turtle I had drawn in class the other day. It was a green turtle, or maybe it was a tortoise because it had knobby knees like an old man.

"The sort that takes the shit out of the water, and makes it safe to drink."

"We drink toilet water?" I ask looking at the cup of water beside me in a new light.

"Yes, Konoha has to," he tells me. "The Land of Fire does not have much water to spare. But the seals clean it better than boiling it, so it is fine to drink."

I remeber now the drought we had last summer. We were only allowed to take showers and baths a few times a week, and drinking water was delivered in bottles by Genin teams who had taken it from local rivers. I wondered if that water was cleaned by seals. Probably not, because Uehara had us boil it and make it into tea.

"How do seals work?" I ask next because he has finished with the noddles and looks like he is going to leave soon.

"Chakra," he tells me simply before lifting the bowl to drink the broth.

"Chakra does a lot," I comment mildly. I say it mostly just to have a response. Then I point to a picture of Kabuki dancers across the street, "do seals look like that?"

"It's rude to point," he tells me, but looks to what I pointed at anyways and laughs when he sees it. "No, seals look like this," he pulls a piece of paper with some marking on it out of his pocket. "You've probably seen these outside buildings," the marking looks like triangles forced together, "they're to help the buildings better withstand earthquakes."

I look at it again and realize that I have seen these markings of buildings and many different markings too. Then my head begins to fill with a million other questions I want to ask him, but before I can paper bills are slapped on the counter, and Seno doesn't spare me a second glance as he gets up to walk away. I think about getting up and going after him, but I decide that that would be too rude. Besides, I have ramen to wait for. I look again at the paper he left, tracing the seal with my finger then crumbling it up in a ball I throw it away.

**…**

Naruto was sleeping in. I watched his chest rise when he breathed in, and fall as he exhaled as gentle as a sleeping cat. It wasn't early in the morning, some people wouldn't even consider it morning anymore, but the heat was still mellow and the birds were still noisy so I decided to not yet wake Naruto.

Instead, I left the orphanage and went into the busier part of town where ninja gear was sold. Seno from yesterday had made me curious and I took care to watch for marking on every building I passed. I saw many markings, and not only on buildings but light poles and cement too. When I passed a store with seals all over its windows and stopped to walk in.

The store was filled with sheets of paper big and small with many different seals drawn on them. The price for even a small paper was expensive, but I didn't know what the seal did or how it worked. Size didn't seem to matter with seals. Many of the ones Seno showed me were different sizes no matter the size of the building. I looked at the pattern and traced it on my palm to remember it. A man at the desk that I didn't realize was there shouted at me in shock: "When did you get in here?"

"Just now," I told him, I hadn't been here for long.

"Well get out!" He hollered pointing outside. "Kid's aren't allowed in here, can't you read the door?!"

"It's rude to point," I said remember what Seno had told me yesterday about rudeness. "And I can't read yet."

"Get Out!" He yelled again, so I did because I don't like being yelled at by strangers. He slammed the door shut as soon as I had both of my feet outside and watched me from the front window until I had gotten far enough away. I ended up going to get breakfast at a kushiage restaurant because I felt like eating something fried and ordered fried quail eggs on a stick. I ate it slowly, walking to a nearby park and sat on a wooden bench while trying to remeber the symbols I had seen.

I ended up sketching the seal Seno had shown me with a blunted kunai Naruto and I used for pranks. It was crude and when I put what felt like chakra into it the wood splintered. I shook the bench since the seal was supposed to prevent the destruction caused by earthquakes, and while the bench did not move, I wasn't sure if that was because the seal worked, or if I was just too weak to move a large bench.

After a moment of deliberation, I decided to try the seal I'd seen in the store, and slowly etched out the symbols. This seal was much larger than the one Seno showed me, and there was a Kanji in the middle, but it was much easier to write than the squiggly lines around it. When I finished I almost decided to go back home. It was midday now, and Naruto would be awake soon wondering where I was. He wouldn't want me to do anything cool without him, but I wasn't even sure if this was cool in the first place so I tested the seal to see if anything would happen.

And something did happen.

.

.

.

A bright light appeared just before I was set on fire.

**…**

**Next chapter~~~ Kurama!**

**A/n: Wow, it hasn't even been 10 hours, but since the last chapter took so long why not update this next one fast, and I was even thinking of putting part of this in the last chapter until I decided not to. But then I looked at it again and I don't know, felt like it was good enough, haha, I'll probably come back and edit it some time, but I really want to work more on the next chapter and getting this out of the way, for now, will allow me to do that better. **

**Also... **

**Takaoko is stoopid, if that wasn't clear already, I hope this made it so. **

**Also, also…**

**If Naruto can survive Sasuke hand though his chest than Takaoko can survive her stupid decisions **

**Thanks for reading! Sorry for any mistakes!**


	6. Pease porridge hot

...

The stillness at first waking up begets confusion. I have never had a moment of stillness, there is always something to feel- it's obnoxious and loud like the cries of cicadas, and only dulls when your not thinking about it. I thought about it now and felt nothing. Alarm was not immediately present. Instead, there was collectedness, like putting together things that fit it was an unusual humor, sooner leaving me placid than upset. Although I knew I should have been upset. I had been on fire, and now I was surrounded by water. Deep dark water, sinking down into the rocks and while it was unmoving it was not dirty, as ponds and lakes are, but clear like it had been cut from a black glacier and just finished melting when I woke up.

I was reminded of the Pool of Sadness outside the Realm of Separation, and like the fairy girl, I was panicked and so overwhelmed that I wanted to drink all the water around me. Only the sounds of sea-snake coiling in the depth stopped me. And my dry throat closed upon itself in fear.

There was something here. My brain registered slowly and in response, my body was even slower dragging across the water like it was a sheet anchored down at four points and the ripples became wrinkles making me trip over myself by the short distance I tried to venture.

Ahead, at my fingertips was the bars of a cage. I raised my eyes, almost demurely by the way my lids rolled up and the white of a smiling face greeted me. It was an unpleasant smile, black dog lips pulled too far back to be kind, and the sight of it made something gripe in my belly, wriggling through my intestines like worms, and trying to rise above my stomach to converge, finishing its nasty business of hurting me.

'Eat or die,' the saying goes, and the orange dog looks hungry in a way domesticated animals shouldn't be, already knowing that the cracks in the bars were the beginnings of its cage.

'Its claws are white,' I noted absentmindedly, like polished shells clicking against the ground. Dogs rarely have white claws, and I began to wonder if it was instead a cat. I thought about asking, but it spoke first.

"**So it's you, Uzumaki," **it said my surname vehemently like we knew each other, and had good reason to look at me so scathingly.

"Yes, it is me," I told him. "Who are you?"

"**You humans call me the Kyuubi,"** it played eponymously, head so close I could feel it's breath.

I knew what that was, the Kyuubi. It was the tailed beast the Fourth Hokage had fought. Now I understood that he had been sealed from my talk with Seno Ninsei, and our lessons in the classroom this week on Konoha's recent history. I asked it this:

"I thought you were sealed?"

"**I am."**

"Oh," I said, confused. "Then what are you doing here? Am I dreaming?" I checked my hands to see if I could see all my fingers. They were there, and afterward, I was even more confused as to why I had thought to check in the first place. It was not something I had been told to do, but a reaction, and it drew the Kyuubi into a long silence I didn't dare break.

.

.

.

"**Yes you are dreaming,"** It agreed after a while. "**You see this paper here?"** he gestured to the front of the cage. "**Rip it off and you'll wake up again."**

I looked at the paper, it had a kanji I couldn't recognize, and I began to feel uncomfortable with the request.

"No thanks," I told it eventually. Wanting to say more but not knowing what else to say.

"**Don't you want to see Naruto?"** the Kyuubi spieled mockingly. "**He's crying now. You've hurt yourself badly."**

"Naruto's crying?"

"**Indeed," **it leans closer, orange face becoming vivid. "**You've always been there for him. Are you so selfish now that you'd stay here when he needs you?" **

The Kyuubi's words made me pause. Not what he said but the way he said them. Through his anger, the truth had slipped out, and his deafness towards his own contradictions left me with a very human conclusion, that I was being tricked by a very inhuman monster. It was easy to think things like this, even easier when I hadn't done much thinking in the first place. I watched him for a little while longer and decided that I agreed with him on one thing, that there was no reason to stay here when Naruto was someplace else.

Suddenly I wished for the cicadas. Their obnoxious chatter dividing until there is only the sound of myself and my brother. I closed my eyes and held a hand over my nose, cutting off all senses so I could hear what I wanted. It was silent, even the breathing of the Kyuubi was nonexistent to my desperately seeking ears. Minute by minute the silence stretched waiting to snap, and when It did I found myself tremendously unprepared for the tumultuous tymbal chorus shattering my brain.

…

For the second time in what seems like no less than an hour, I woke up.

There was a buzzing in the air and lights in my face. I was blinded by them, and blinked to see, scratching my face from the itchy feeling of stirring chakra.

"Uzumaki Takaoko."

I spun around making myself dizzy and put a hand on each side of my head to keep it still.

To my surprise, the person who had called my name was the Hokage. If I hadn't been so crummy I might have attempted to act politely, but at this moment I couldn't work up the incentive to act in any way other than how I was feeling. He must have noticed this because he didn't say anything about my lack of manners. Instead, he let go of my brother, who I hadn't realized was being held back by the shoulder, and allowed a moment of reunion before he began speaking to me.

"Takaoko," the Hokage calls my name again. "Do you remember what happened?"

His question sets off something in my brain and I'm reeling back inside my mind to still waters and iron bars but before I can say anything about what I am thinking, my head is shaking 'no'. I don't say anything against it. When your body moves on your own, you should follow it, or so I've been told.

"You attempted to recreate a seal," he began slowly. "However, it was poorly written and once you administer your chakra it backfired and exploded. Do you understand how dangerous that could have been? "

I nodded again this time up and down in a 'yes', but my face must have said otherwise because he then asked me to tell him why it was dangerous.

"It was dangerous because I could have set something on fire, Hokage-sama." I distinctly remember setting myself on fire, but there are no burns on my skin or damage to my nerves, and I don't say anything about it.

He nodded his head and drew out a pipe. I felt Naruto, who had been surprisingly quiet for the entire time, burrow deeper in my side.

"How do you feel now that you're awake?" He changes the subject, taking on a more grandfatherly tone.

"Good," I say, then nod, and say it again. "Good."

"Your brother was quite worried about you," he says vacantly. Naruto peaks up from under my arm. "I need you to promise to never do something like that again."

"I promise," I tell him, then add, "Hokage-sama."

"Good," he smiles but his eyes tell a different story. They are asking how I'd even gotten the idea to attempt a seal, they are asking what I was thinking about when I was shaking my head, they are asking all the questions I don't know how to answer, but I want him to ask me them anyway if only to change how he's looking at me. He doesn't ask me anything, instead, he says: "Uehara is waiting for you in the lobby."

…

It was silent walking back to the orphanage.

Whatever had made Naruto speechless in the hospital had come with us, and I couldn't think of anything to say.

Uehara walked ahead of us. Her heavy feet leaving deep footprints that Naruto and I jumped into following childishly despite the unusual air. She heard us but paid no attention to our rambunctious nature and settled on clutching her fists and clenching her shoulders tightly to quell any waves of anger. I watched her barely restrained self-control in amusement. I think she knew this too because the longer I looked the faster she walked until Naruto and I had to run to keep up with her snappy pace.

When we got back to the orphanage she told Naruto to go inside and held my shoulder back when I tried to follow.

"You stay," she told me a little meanly. "We've got some talking to do."

I stopped struggling against her hold and waited tolerantly for her to talk. She took her time slipping betel nuts from out of her pocket and chewing slowly.

Then once she had enough to turn all her teeth red she turned to me and said: "I think you should leave."

I resisted the urge to immediately scream 'what?', and tried to hold back the irrational, terrible anger that had instantaneously overtaken every thought capable of existing in an empty head.

"Where will we go?" I asked instead of screaming my head off.

She looked at me cooly.

"Not we, just you."

She must have known I was thinking about killing her then because she took one look at me and grabbed a great bit of my hair pulling it hard. When she let go I gave her a nasty look.

"You hate me," I spat out.

"I don't hate you," she grabbed more betel nuts from her pocket.

"You act like you hate me," I told her.

"you've given me good reasons to hate you."

"It's not my fault," I said entirely believing it. I did not get to decide how I grew up Uehara did, and for that reason alone, she would always have a power over me, a power that could drive me to unexplainable fits of emotion. And while I associated Naruto with love, I only had hate for Uehara. It wasn't just her either. Whoever my parents were, whatever they'd done to make the village see us as a stain has gotten them the same distaste. "It's my parent's fault."

There was a long silence after that. And Uehara's cool look turned into something entirely different. She looked like she wanted to say something important, something that would make me take back my words and claw at my throat as they went back down. Instead, she forced her own words away and clamped her jaw so hard that I would have thought the red from her mouth was blood if I hadn't been watching her chew all this time.

Eventually, the silence ended.

"You're a bad influence on Naruto," she told me.

"You're a bad influence on me," I shot back immediately.

She started laughing, it relaxed the lines around her mouth and eyes making her look much younger than she actually was. I had never heard her laugh before and at first, mistook it for her finally choking on all the spit in her mouth.

"I have a great deal of shame," Uehara admitted. "And you do not have enough. You ask too many questions about the things that matter the least and not enough on what matters the most. You're missing all the real answers."

"You're talking crazy!" I accused, but Uehara just shook her head, bobbing it side to side like a mule strapped up with a heavy collar. And then I watched as she chewed on betel, her dry lips looking as if they had burst open with blood. She was being honest, for perhaps the first time in her life- I realized this too late, she had already hardened up again and the coolness returned like a thickened skin, layering and layering until the person in front of me was completely unrecognizable to who I had been speaking to before.

"You get out of here by the end of the year," she told me and left me alone.

...

A/N: I hate writing hiruzen.. I just don't know how he's supposed to talk, lol...

Sorry for the long wait, and BIG thanks to Time Parad0x for helping me get an actual idea of where this is going. Thanks for reading! Sorry for any mistakes!


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